


Entwined

by orphan_account



Series: When The Day Met The Night [5]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Bad Dreams, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1377505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One morning, Maka wakes up at five a.m. with Crona beside her, and realizes he hasn’t slept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entwined

**Author's Note:**

> (Was supposed to post this for Day 2 of Crona Week...which ended like two weeks ago...haha, anyway.)

**034\. Entwined**

 

_\- September 29, 2009 -_

 

One morning, Maka wakes up at five a.m. with Crona beside her, and realizes he hasn’t slept.

He’s far away from her in his bed, or at least farther away than he had been when she’d fallen asleep seven hours ago. The last few nights they’ve begun sleeping in a way that allowed them to touch, usually their ankles crossing or their hands gently clasped whereas before they’d stayed religiously on their own "sides."

But right now, he is distant, on his back, and stiffly staring at the ceiling.

His eyes droop terribly, the dark circles are amplified, but his lids don’t close. He looks like he’s been there, deep in thought, for a long time.

“Crona?”

When she speaks he only startles a little bit, then turns his head to look at her.

He looks exhausted.

"Did you sleep?" she asks, even though she knows.

Crona shakes his head.

Maka shifts around so that she is on her side instead of her back, but still keeps her distance.

“I’m sorry if I woke you at all.” She smiles a little. “Soul says I kick him in my sleep sometimes, although that may just be because he’s him.”

"Oh, n-no, it was nothing like that," Crona assures her.

She watches as the dark blush creeps onto his face the longer he stares at her.

"You hardly moved at all..." he says.

_Like a perfect angel._

Among other thoughts that were keeping him awake--worrying about classes, worrying about social settings, worrying about worrying--the fact Maka is wearing a thin nightgown instead of pajama pants is currently the most taxing.

During the night she tossed and turned a bit, and the fabric of the gown kept moving up higher and higher, showing him all of her thigh in the dim light, and…

He kept shifting further away from her each time, embarrassed that he wanted to look at her legs and trying _not_ to look and...and _why was it that he wanted to look?_

Crona doesn’t understand it…has never had it explained to him, attraction. It feels somewhat uncomfortable, hot and prickly, and dizzying to his body...but something about that dizziness is…good, too? The way it heats up his entire face, and makes his brain feel like it’s floating. He likes it when Maka’s skin touches his own...but he’s never wanted to touch someone else’s skin like this before her...

Even early this morning, with her legs (somewhat) recovered by the nightgown fabric…

Maka is his friend, and she would not keep them covered unless they were meant to be hidden.

"Even though I couldn’t sleep, I—feel fine,” he tries to assure her.

Maka can tell that’s not true. However, she just wants to help him in any way she can, so she doesn’t press it.

He studies her face, expression growing somewhat sad. His eyes trail down from her hairline to her jawline, and finally rest on the fading scar on her neck.

He tentatively touches it; his fingertips are coarse.

“Oh, that’s from the last time I fought you.” Maka says. She smiles gently, wistfully. “Those blood rejection spikes are pretty sharp, huh?”

Crona does not look amused; his eyes go wide and his hand instantly trembles.

Maka’s smile fades instantly. “Crona, I didn’t mean--”

“I don’t know how you can be f-fiends with me, when I…” his fingers scrunch away from the scar, and he looks pained. “When I’ve hurt you so much.” Aside, “And Soul...”

Maka grabs onto his hand, tight, and slides in closer to his body.

The look in her deep green eyes is determined. He has no idea how she’s able to look so strong all the time…

“It’s okay, I promise,” she says, and squeezes his hand. “I’m not mad at you, you know that, right? I never was. I’m really glad you’re here, Crona.”

Maka feels a warm constriction press in around her soul as his fingers tense around hers, and when that happens while they’re in his bed, she always feels magnetically drawn to moving in closer to him. As she shifts to get even more comfortable, to draw the two of them nearer to each other, he feels her leg kinda-sorta slip between his under the sheets.

His stomach flips; then feels like it might twist itself into a knot. His throat feels tight…the skin of her legs is so soft…his face is hot… _what is this feeling?_ He’s never known...

"D-do you really mean that?” he rambles off, “That you’re glad I’m here? I…”

He moves his leg a little so that it rubs against hers. _She’s so warm._

“I don’t know how someone like me is supposed to fit in around people as nice as you."

Maka shakes her head.

"But you are nice. The nicest.”

"I can’t be nice. Not after…”

He looks very serious for a moment, and glances downward.

It’s spoken in a whisper:

“Not after all those dead people.”

Maka feels a shiver run down her spine.

She doesn’t really know what to say here. Hasn’t, for the last week. She isn’t sure what exactly _all those dead people_ entails, but lately, he’s been using this particular phrasing.

 _How many people was it…?_ she wants to ask; she gulps down the lump in her throat. She can see some of the scars on _his_ neck, the shadows under his eyes, and anger towards Medusa for him constricts her chest. That must be what he’s talking about.

But those eyes...innocent but broken...she tells him, anyway,

“No one blames you for those things.”

He shakes his head again, this time slower.

"T-that’s what everyone has said, but.” Crona looks defeated. “How can you all just not care? H-how’s that possible?"

"It just is.” She takes his hand in both of hers, pus her forehead against his to make sure he knows.

 “That’s what second chances are, Crona. That’s forgiveness...”

"Forgiveness…"

He doesn’t realize it, but as he ducks his head to hide the coloration of his cheeks, his head rests against her forehead, and it makes Maka’s heart skip a beat because he’s so close.

…Sleeping next to each other, so that he didn't feel alone at night, was one thing. Maka did it with Soul sometimes when either of them couldn’t sleep; she did it with Tsubaki often. Friends sleeping side by side was one thing; but being so close in a bed that their limbs almost entwine? Being so close that she can hear Crona’s breathing, rough, trying to slow itself?

Aren’t they supposed to just be friends? She tells herself she would do this for anybody. That she would _want_ to hold hands with any friend this often, that she would tangle her legs with a friend’s, that she would find herself instinctively wanting to stroke Crona’s hair with her hand, to maybe kiss his forehead to soothe…

 _Stop it,_ she tells herself. _He didn’t say you could do such things. He…_

Crona tilts his head back up to look her in the eye.

“Maka,” he mutters. “I…”

He swallows, and Maka watches the way his scarred skin pulls tight over the lump.

“I-I’ve never been this close to another person before.”

She starts to pull away, right away.

“I’m sorry, Crona. I didn’t mean to—”

But when she tries to move her hands away from his, something in him instinctively vice-grips him them in his own, hard.

_Ow…_

“I’m sorry, i-it’s just, you’re the first person who’s ever touched me, my mother…She never used to touch me.”

He’s frowning, looking like he wants to say more…it’s good for him to talk about these things, Maka things, to realize that the way he used to live, without touch, without anyone who told him they cared for him, was not okay, and not the way he was supposed to live.

She studies their fingers—his longer, drier and bonier than hers—as he tries to find the words he wishes to use.

“It just…feels like a lot, all of a sudden, when you touch me,” he decides on, letting his eyes slip shut, “like…like the feelings may break into my skin.”

Maka’s heart skips a beat.

“Kind of scary, right?” she says, trying to smile.

“Yes.”

He presses his lips together slowly, and for the first time, she thinks that he’s so close that she’d like to kiss those lips.

That wouldn’t be fair. She closes her eyes, abrupt, and doesn’t let herself imagine it.

They’re friends.

…He should probably get some rest.

When Crona opens his eyes, Maka shows him her brightest smile.

He looks like it catches him off guard; it does. It always does.

“Why don’t you try to get some sleep?” Maka encourages him. “We do have class today. We don’t have to be so close, so you can be comfortable.” She finally lets her hand slip from his, settling her body just out of his reach.

“I’ll be here.”

He nods, and his voice is so tired and quiet she can barely hear it.

“Right...”

Within moments, he does fall asleep.

She stays awake. She’s never actually seem him asleep before…she wonders now if this is always how it is, if he ever gets a chance to rest when she’s out cold or if he always stares at the ceiling. Maybe she should keep watch over him more often.

Crona is a restless sleeper; his body twitches and spasms minutely, he grinds his teeth and bites his own lip. Maybe he’s having bad dreams…she puts her hand near his, but not on it, and as if he can feel it there, his crawls on top of hers, tugging on it firmly. She obliges, and he keeps tugging…his breathing hitching uneasily, his brow pinched firmly, he eventually pulls her in and starts to curls up against her, clutching her tight like she’s a body pillow, legs sliding up against hers and _oh._

Maka realizes how it feels to hold him.

To wrap her arms around his bony frame. He’s half on top of her, his hard jawline pressing into her chest, she can feel his ribcage prodding at her as it rises and falls at her side.

His fingers press into her forearm here and there, his nails like tiny little pricks. He sounds short of breath here and there and a few times, he mutters, “stop…stop, stop it, please…” and vice-grips her arm hard like he’s trying to feel the bare bone.

She has to bite her own lip to keep from reacting out loud.

 _What’s going on in there? This…isn’t very much like sleep at all,_ she thinks uneasily.

She ends up letting him lay with her for over an hour, surprised that for all his jostling and twitching, he doesn’t actually wake on his own. All the while his little voice mumbles, and his coarse hands, confused, grapple with her skin and bones, minutely pushing some, pulling some.

At one point, he nestles his face against her collarbone like he needs the affection very much, humming a soft, sad note, and god, she wants to kiss him to ease his sorrows.

The urge to kiss him would not subside for some time.


End file.
